Avyaay Garg of Aditya Birla World Academy (Tardeo), who finished second (seven points) behind Singapore`s Lim Shee Hun Magnus (7.5 points) at the recently-concluded Singapore Open Chess Championships in the U-8 category, considers the silver medal special, despite the result not being the one he hoped to settle for.

The Class 3 student has achieved quite a bit in his short one-year journey in chess. Last year, he became amongst the youngest player aged seven to get FIDE`s ELO rating. He has participated in many state and national events and also represented India at U-8 world cadet championship in Georgia last September. "I feel a bit sad that I could not come home with gold and had to settle for silver. This [second-place finish] though is special considering that it is my first international medal and also it has just been a year since I started playing chess. Also, the second-place finish aspires me to go back next time when it is conducted and win gold," said Avyaay (ELO rating 1242), who finished second in the four-day tournament which had 500 participants from Brazil, China, Germany, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and the United States.